Inexplicably and without notice on Yom Kippur eve, the Jewish Day of Atonement, Superior Court Judge David Yaffe came to his senses and concluded the jailing of anti-tax crusader Richard I. Fine 18 months ago would not break his will.
Fine, 70, was freed from LA County Jail at sundown Friday night. (Previous articles Letter from Jail, Prisoner of Conscience)
On Thursday, Yaffe issued a court order (Yaffe-Fine.pdf) refusing the Tarzana attorney’s latest filing seeking to annul the contempt of court case and other rulings against him. Neither Fine nor the attorneys for the Marina del Rey developer, Marina Strand Colony II, which had sought Fine’s financial records, were present.
Yaffe wrote his previous orders were final so he had no jurisdiction over any aspect of the case except whether the jailing of Fine in March 2009 amounted to coercive confinement that no longer served a purpose since Fine had not backed down. It is unprecedented for coercive confinement to last more than five days, the standard set by the U.S. Supreme Court years ago in a case involving LA Times reporter Bill Farr.
“The only continuing jurisdiction that this court retains in case B8109420 is the discretion to release Fine from confinement in the county jail on the ground that his continued confinement will not induce him to answer questions put to him in a
joint debtors examination,” Yaffe wrote.
“Fine’s demand for a release on that ground was ruled on by this court on August 23, 2010, and is calendared for further consideration six months from’ that date.”
Yaffe noted that even if he had jurisdiction, the incarcerated Fine filed his request 13 days before the August hearing when legal procedures required 16 days’ notice.
“The Court will take this matter under submission solely for the purpose of adding to this ruling corrections to certain misstatements of fact made by Fine in his moving papers,” Yaffe said.
Yet, 24 hours later, Yaffe, who is retiring next month, issued another order freeing Fine, apparently accepting the fact that someone who refused to back down for 18 months could not be coerced even if held in jail for the rest of his life as the judge had vowed to do.”
Fine, who won numerous cases fighting illegally imposed taxes, ran afoul of the judiciary when he started crusading against secret illegal payments made to judges by county supervisors.
More than $40,000 a year was paid to each judge by the LA County Board of Supervisors in addition to their state-mandated salaries of nearly $180,000.
Fine claimed the payments influenced judges to rule in the county’s favor in 95 percent of the cases they handled and filed an endless stream of writs challenging the propriety of judges handling litigation involving the county where they were receiving illegal under-the-table payments from the county.
His position was ultimately upheld by the state Supreme Court and he legislature immediately passed a bill signed into law by the governor legalizing the payments, both past and present. The judges now get more than $50,000 in extra payments from the county.
Fine’s persistence led to the State Bar taking disciplinary action against him and disbarring him in early 2009.
That left him vulnerable a short time later when he appeared in court on behalf of homeowners to fight the Marina del Rey developer, raising related issues to the county-approved project. Yaffe granted the developer’s demand for Fine’s financial records and ordered him removed from court in handcuffs and jailed for contempt when he refused.
Fine has fought unsuccessfully for his release, taking his case twice to the U.S. Supreme Court which refused to hear the case. He has numerous habeas corpus and other legal filings pending in state and federal courts.
Fine’s case became a cause celebre for many like Leslie Dutton and her Full Disclosure Network which championed his cause nationwide while local media largely ignored it.
Give it up, the guy’s a jerk. No one cares what happens to him as long as he’s not screwing clients or the courts any more.
Ron:
You are still drinking the Fine Kool-Aid.
His confinement had NOTHING to do with his supposed “crusade” against the judicial adjustment pay authorized by the LA County Board of Supervisors.
Who can logically arue that it costs the same to live in Shasta or any other “Cow County” as Los Angeles? All the pay does is seek to equalize judical salaries so qualified people will be attracted to the bench. Any person on the bench could easily earn twice what they now receive as pay, including the County stipend.
Fine is a loser who tilts at windmills and he get journalists who are lazy and looking for an easy story to swallow his pap.
By the way, if Fine showed his income, it would more than likely be discovered he is practicing law without a license and he’d end up back in the caboose. Now sit back and watch him wreak enough more havoc to get himself back there anyway. Your mother must be very proud of you.
Shame on you. Shame on Leslie Dutton. The two of you should know better and spend your time and credibility on a real case that deserves the inquiry and publicity.
I don’t care who Fine is or what his problems are. I do care about a country where a single judge has so much power to throw someone in jail for such a long time. Can someone explain the difference between such actions and a communist or other nation where people are incarcenated because you offended a judge or a politician or whoever. WTF!!!
“His position was ultimately upheld by the state Supreme Court and (t)he legislature immediately passed a bill signed into law by the governor legalizing the payments, both past and present. The judges now get more than $50,000 in extra payments from the county.”
I wonder if anything that’s happening in Bell had anything to do with this, and there is an investigation into whether this bill pass and signed by the governor is unConstitutional.
This whole thing also sounds very much like sleazy Villaraigosa Ticketgate…accepting freebees worth hundred of thousands from people the city does business with.
The oligarchs,Riordan, Broad and Beutner want to control L.A. Beutner is a Trojan horse. Antonio will be set up for life, Dick and Eli will call the shots and Beutner, as a Mayor, will have something to do in his retirement. We only have to remember the goofy Riordan`s administration, full of accomplishments.
Ah, yes. True justice. Paris Hilton gets less than a month, Lindsay Lohan gets less than a month, but Mr. Fine does eighteen months, didn’t get a jury trial, didn’t get to cross examine or confront any witnesses against him.
And guess what? The courts couldn’t break any of these ladies’ “will” either. Nice, huh?
And…. how much you want to bet that these ladies won’t do eighteen months….even collectively.
Us taxpayers housed and fed Mr. Fine, just so that Judge Yaffe could prove a point.
Another example of Ju$t U$.
But, this has nothing to do with the City Council, does it? Only that their pay is tied-in with the Superior Court judges. And exposing improprieties of either, seems to get us nowhere. Too much power?
Anyone that has their eyes and ears open knows that government on many levels is corrupt. L.A. has a history of this and it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. If the population actually knew how biz here was done, they would be sick. Those of us who already know, know that the time has come to clean things up. Funny in a way that Ron has at the top of this page the “LA Clean Sweep” program.. Why would that be there if there wasn’t a problem? Wake up! Election day is rapidly approaching. Think hard before making your mark. Do you want to vote along with unions and other special interests for the status quo or do you want to make your vote count? At least Fine stands for something..
Yes, Fine stands for something, you are right.
Fine stands for obfuscation, misdirection, fraud, dishonesty, and all the bad things one can think of to call a lawyer who has great lawyering skills and no moral compass.
When he was a practicing lawyer, he had all the skills and tricks, and used them in every case, whether they furthered the goals of his clients or not. He didn’t care about the clients; only enough to make sure they could pay him.
His reputation was indeed that he would pursue any case to the end of the world or the highest court, whether or not he had a chance to win it, as long as he had someone who would pay the bills. When the money ran out, so did Fine.
Do not glorify this aging fool. Let loose on organized society, he will be back again facing yet more sanctions. People like him never go away; they are the proverbial “bad pennies”.
Without the Leslie Duttons and the Ron Kayes of this world, he is lost. Educated legal writers will have nothing to do with the man. So, watch for his next charade; you will probably be able to read about it in these pages.
He is no longer able to practice law, but that won’t stop him; he will seek to use artifice and device to scheme to involve some unsuspecting young lawyer to front for him so he can keep up his old game. The result will be, as it is in all of the similar cases, that both will be charged and another person will lose his or her license. HIstory repeats itself.
I have no comment regarding Mr. Fine.
I just want to remind everyone that it was Judge Yaffe that allowed City Proposition R to stay on the Ballot. It is un-constitutional to have two un-related items on one voting instrument. In Prop R’s case, it was ethic reforms and a term limit extension for City Councilmember’s. Clearly these two items are un-related; however Judge Yaffe allowed it to proceed because the ethic items DID NOT require a Citizen Vote.
Shame on Yaffe working for City Hall like that. If the City Council wanted a term extension, from 8 years to 12 years, why didn’t they put a one-subject only proposition on the Ballot? Because they thought it would go down in defeat.
Cowards & Cons. . . . . pathetic.
Didn’t think Yaffe was right? Ever hear of the Court of Appeal?
Yaffe is no stranger to being reversed; it goes with the job for the court he was sitting in.
I don’t much like him myself, but he does manage to be right about 50% of the time.
“Who can logically arue (sic) that it costs the same to live in Shasta or any other “Cow County” as Los Angeles? All the pay does is seek to equalize judical salaries so qualified people will be attracted to the bench. Any person on the bench could easily earn twice what they now receive as pay, including the County stipend.”
Sorry, but there is a lot of trouble with your logic here.
1) is a judge who would behave like this what we call ‘quality’? If so, we need to rethink that.
2) only three counties in California (San Francisco, Yolo, Mendocino) do not supplement pay in this way. For the record, it is MORE expensive to live in San Francisco than Los Angeles. So, does that mean that SF has less qualified judges?
3) If the aforementioned ‘Cow Counties’ such as Shasta therefore don’t to supplement judges salaries, why do they? If the logic that extra compensation is needed due to cost of living in the expensive metros would hold water then only the counties with the most expensive cost of living (SF, LA, Orange, San Diego) would to supplement but that is not the case.
4) the pay for most county/city supervisors is tied to the pay of the judges. Hmm, really? That means that folks like Antonovich have a back door way to increase their own compensation. (‘Noooo, I didn’t vote myself a pay increase. We did increase the pay of judges though. [cough])
5) this is the biggie for me. Do these LA County judges think they are somehow better or more qualified than any justice on bench of the Supreme Court of the United States? By accepting the salary and benefit package that is GREATER than any member of the esteemed SCOTUS, it says to me that they think they are.
I’m so tired of the argument that any judge or any government employee could earn twice that much. Well at least 95% of them never will. If they can, quit your damn job and go ahead and make that money. If money is what motivates you, then you are in the wrong profession to begin with. Get out, and let people who care about the societies they live in and want to do some good get those jobs.
Anonymous #1
What are you smoking?
You must work for the corrupt courts, because anybody with a clue wouldn’t support the Mafia-like racket they’ve got going. These judges ignore the law, make up their own crap, take bribes, falsify records, commit fraud upon the court (which is redundant)jail innocent people,cause untold harm to the community, all in the name of greed. This corruption goes all the way to the governor, and through every court, and governmental office, on the way. Our courts have been denying due process, and the right to a fair trial for twenty years. I don’t appreciate it.
I work in government and anyone who thinks these people, including judges are unbiased paragons of virture are smoking—. They get away with what they can, as long as they can make their obscene wages and noone challenges them. Anyone who does, gets his life screwed, and asses like on this site will come and disparage the challenger and defend the ass. Haven’t we seen this scenario over and over. Read today’s LA Times about the city of Vernon/Industry of how they do it. Doe City of Bell ring a bell?
I work in government and anyone who thinks these people, including judges are unbiased paragons of virture are smoking—. They get away with what they can, as long as they can make their obscene wages and noone challenges them. Anyone who does, gets his life screwed, and asses like on this site will come and disparage the challenger and defend the ass. Haven’t we seen this scenario over and over. Read today’s LA Times about the city of Vernon/Industry of how they do it. Does City of Bell ring a bell? Unless exposed, the asses are always right. Meanwhile, they have made their money, so they can fight the people in court.
I’ve been in front of Yaffe in Dept. 85, twice and once in front of Dzintra Janavs in Dept. 86, once. Yaffe really has been at that position a little too long. He pretty much does whatever he wants and knows full well, how difficult it is to take a case to the Court of Appeal. It’s very costly and lawyers charge more per hour, than at the Superior Court level. And even if you are granted a fee waiver, you still have to pay for the transcripts of the Superior Court proceeding, out of your own pocket. On top of that, the Court of Appeal reviews the issues in the light most favorable to the trial court. Yaffe knows this.